Wednesday, September 14, 2016

Diaa Hadid of the Times writes about the Hajj: Disney goes to Mecca

The native informant of the Times, Diaa Haddid, went to the Hajj and has been writing about it. I can't look at her twitter account because she--for some reason--has blocked me. But she has shared some of her tweets here: please, if you are an Arabic speaker read her tweets IN ARABIC. Does she not come across as someone who google translated her English into Arabic? She uses English expressions that no one uses in Arabic as in "walk on foot", or "pictures to come": do you know how hilarious those expressions sound in Arabic? Is she writing in a language with which she has such poor command to come across to her employers that she is a native speaker when she clearly is not? And I never knew in my studies of Islam that Islam has a "modesty code" until I read Hadid: "to adhere to Islamic modesty codes". And notice that she is at pain to tell the readers that she is not a real Muslim and that she is doing this Hajj as a schtick for the paper and at one point she says: "I even prayed.". Oh, how nice of you. And cliches are clearly favored by your writer: "I mean no disrespect when I say Mecca is, well, a mecca for shopping." And what would the native informants be without vomiting insults against Muslims that Western readers have come to expect: "Sitting next to a group of Saudi women who resembled large black crows..." Can you imagine if this was a description of Jewish women in prayer? Can you imagine the outrage? And her schtick about her mother wanting her to get married is not funny and pretty old after three mentions in one article. And look at the cultural sensitivity that you expect from a Times native informant: "In my news media delegation, there is a Yemeni woman who looks like a sweet granny until she flips on her niqab."

Comic by Terry Furry, reproduced from "Heard the One About the Funny Leftist?" by Cris Thompson, East Bay Express

As'ad's Bio

As'ad AbuKhalil, born March 16, 1960. From Tyre, Lebanon, grew up in Beirut. Received his BA and MA from American University of Beirut in pol sc. Came to US in 1983 and received his PhD in comparative government from Georgetown University. Taught at Tufts University, Georgetown University, George Washington University, Colorado College, and Randolph-Macon Woman's College. Served as a Scholar-in-Residence at Middle East Institute in Washington DC. He served as free-lance Middle East consultant for NBC News and ABC News, an experience that only served to increase his disdain for maintream US media. He is now professor of political science at California State University, Stanislaus. His favorite food is fried eggplants.

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